Triangles, Squares and Other Shapes
by punkfunkdisco
Summary: On one of their first nights at college, Audrey asks Joey about her friends' romantic history. Then wishes she hadn't. Mostly dialogue in an effort to practice Joey's voice.


- So who's slept with who?

- Audrey!

- C'mon, Joey, your band of clean-cut, fresh-faced friends reek of incestuous love triangles. Or squares. Or... what are the other shapes?

- Hmm, well we do have a distinctly complicated romantic history, but honestly? There hasn't been much bed-hopping.

- Don't tell me that! You have to provide me with at least _some_ gossip! You and Dawson have totally got down and dirty, right?

- Audrey!

- Stop shouting my name so disapprovingly, Joey; this is how it's going to be. I will continue to bombard you with awkward questions all year until we finally break that outer shell of deceiving prudishness. I know there's an animal in there somewhere.

Don't roll your eyes at me!

- Well if it shuts you up then you won't be happy to hear that Dawson and I have never slept together.

- What? Are you serious? Wait, hold on, so you're telling me that you and this boy you pine over so hard have never even gone all the way and yet things are so horribly complicated between you both?

- Yep. That's the short version. Maybe things are so complicated _because_ we haven't gone all the way?

- Who cares about reasons? I want the long version.

- Trust me, Audrey, you do not want the long version; I'd like to get some sleep tonight.

- Sleep?! Sleep is lame when there's gossip to be had! I'll just keep you up all night anyway if you don't tell me.

- I suppose those puppy dog eyes are also going to be a feature of this year? OK, well I'll make it as short as possible, we want to get out of here alive.

- Yay! So come on then, spill!

- Dawson and I have known each other since we were, like, two or something ridiculously young.

- Childhood sweethearts! This is awesome. Sorry, please continue.

- So yeah, we've also known Pacey since we were little...

- Pre-teen love triangles! This is so much better than I thought.

- Audrey! Do you want to hear about this or not?

- Yes, but it can't be a monologue, Joey, that would be boring.

- If I may continue? So then the day before we start high school Jen arrives and Dawson and Pacey trip over their tongues to say hello. For various reasons Jen decides the innocent, naïve Dawson is who she's been searching for her whole life and they start dating.

- Really? I would never have put those two together. Pacey and Jen maybe, but Dawson?

- I know, right? Surprise, surprise it didn't work out.

- Wait, how did you feel about this?

- I was pretty much a total bitch to her.

- I knew it!

- But we've worked through that now... I think. Anyway, eventually Dawson notices me as more than a friend and we start dating. It was short-lived to say the least.

- Oh my God, how disappointing. What the hell is Pacey doing at this point?

- Sleeping with his English teacher.

Wow, have I actually rendered the great Audrey Liddell speechless? Surely we should be capturing this moment on camera?

- Don't play with me, Joey, I'm a fragile creature. I know I said I wanted gossip, but you don't have to make it up!

- It's true, I swear!

- Shut. Up.

- Cross my heart. It was quite the scandal, she eventually had to leave town.

- Do you think he'd be pissed if I called him Benjamin?

- I think the passage of time has healed his broken heart.

- God, Capeside's worse than L.A.

- It's a small town, we have nothing else going on.

- So you and Dawson.

- Right. Me and Dawson. Like I said, it was short-lived. I felt like I couldn't grow up properly, like I was stuck as some sort of appendage to him. He'd always been such a part of me that I didn't know who I was without him, and I really needed to find out.

- OK, I get that, it's understandable. Fickle, but understandable.

- Audrey don't judge me – I already beat myself up about it enough for the both of us.

- I'm not judging you, Joey, no judgement here; I've done worse, but you have to admit it was terrible timing.

- Even worse timing was the arrival of Jack.

- Ooh, the gay one?

- Yeah, except he wasn't gay when he arrived. Or rather he was, but it took a brief fling with yours truly to realise it.

- You and Jack?! You actually turned a boy _gay_?

- I never thought of it like that. He was just trying to hide himself in something he thought he should be doing.

- Still, Joey, how did you _not_ curl up and swear off guys for life.

- I'm made of stronger stuff.

- Well I bet that was a messy, drama-filled outing.

- You could say that.

- So what was Pacey doing now, sleeping with the sheriff?

- Er, no. We're sordid, but we're not _that_ sordid – Pacey's dad is our local law enforcer.

- Ew, sorry.

- No, he'd moved on from sleeping with teachers to spitting in their faces. Yeah, it wasn't his finest hour, but Andie stood by him.

- Andy? Pacey's gay now too?!

- Oh no, sorry, Andie's Jack's sister.

- Ohh, the crazy one?

- Audrey! That's a little insensitive, don't you think?

- Well by the sounds of it, Pacey's enough to turn anyone crazy.

Oh. Touchy subject? I think you need to elaborate.

- I'll get to it, all in good time.

- Well, when I said I wanted the long version, I didn't realise quite how long it was going to be and while this is great woman-to-woman bonding, I'm getting a little sleepy. Could ya hurry it up a bit?

- Oh no, missy, you wanted the long version and the long version you are going to get. Someone needs to be taught a lesson.

- In that case, I'm gonna need coffee.

Audrey swung her legs over the bed and walked lazily over to the coffee maker, dragging her pink-slippered feet. She'd never met anyone like Joey before; who was smart and cute yet not overly aware of being either. She wondered why her new room-mate didn't make more of it and turned to look directly at her, trying to figure her out.

Joey was sat cross-legged on her bed, hands folded in her lap, looking nervous. She tucked some hair behind her ears despite none of it actually bothering her face. All this nostalgic recapping of her high school years was making her slightly uncomfortable and she wasn't even sure why she was revealing all these antics to someone she didn't even know very well. But that was Audrey, she had something magnetic about her and it was easy to open up.

- So while you and Pacey were playing with the new kids in town, what were Dawson and Jen up to?

- Jen was having various dalliances with boys whose names I can't even remember.

- Me and Jen should totally hang out.

- And Dawson had a very odd and out-of-character fling with a girl nobody knew anything about. Come to think of it, we still don't.

- Interesting. Me and Dawson will be talking about this when I eventually meet him.

So I'm guessing, from the little I know about you and Dawson, that even though you were both distracted by total hotties, you were still riding an undercurrent of emotional angst toward each other?

- You could say that.

- So what happened next?

- I offered myself to him, unashamedly and unequivocally.

- And?!

- Humiliating rejection.

- What?! What is _wrong_ with you people?

- If I knew that then this conversation wouldn't be the behemoth that it is turning out to be.

- I get the feeling there's more to come, a lot more.

- Oh yes, but first? Jack joined the football team and Jen attempted a cheerleading revolution whilst catching the eye of an impressionable young player.

- And what about Pacey?

- Andie cheated on him. I never could understand that; they always seemed the most supportive, together couple.

- When you grow up in L.A., one of the first things you learn is that appearances can be deceptive.

- I guess so. Anyway, now we arrive at some serious drama.

- Well don't keep me in suspense!

- Pacey falls in love with me and I... fall in love back.

- I totally saw that coming.

- You did not!

- I so did! The way you talk about him, the way you say his _name_. It was completely obvious, Joey.

- Well it wasn't so obvious to me until he kissed me.

- Do I have to ask how Dawson felt about this?

- You can probably imagine.

- Uh huh, his best friends have just ripped his heart out, I'm surprised he didn't throw himself into the creek.

- Audrey!

- Joey!

- He rejected me, what was I supposed to do? Live in solitude until he realised the error of his ways?

- You make a very good point and one that I completely agree with, but the way you're telling the story makes me feel sympathetic to Dawson and I'm just wondering why. You still feel guilty, don't you?

- A little.

- So let's review the situation. Once upon a time you liked Dawson, but Dawson liked Jen. Then he decided he liked you and for what seems like the only time in history, you liked each other at the same time; even if it was only for five minutes. Then you didn't like him, but you liked Jack, then you liked Dawson again, but he didn't like you. _Then_ you fell in love with his best friend.

Did I miss anything?

- Quite a lot actually, but you got the basics.

So Pacey and I angsted for ages over whether we should be doing what we were doing. Or rather I did.

- Yeah, Pacey doesn't strike me as the angsty type.

- Then I realised.

- Realised what?

- That I loved him and that it was OK to love him.

- So you got together?

- Well, we kinda ran away together. Sailed the East Coast down to the Caribbean for the summer.

- Seriously?

- Yeah.

- This does not sound like the Joey Potter I know. It sounds amazing!

- There are many things you have yet to discover about me, Audrey. And it was amazing. I don't think I'd ever been so happy. I don't think Pacey had either.

- I know it's wrong, but now I'm imagining sex on secluded little Caribbean beaches, waves lapping at your toes, a gentle breeze running over your naked bodies.

Joey, tell me you did that because I will die if you didn't!

You didn't, did you? Oh God, I am so disappointed. Carry on with your story so I can go to sleep and dream about it. If you two were so loved up, how come you're not together now?

- It's complicated.

- Of course it is; nothing's ever simple with you, Potter.

- I'd like to blame it all on Pacey and his inferiority complex, but it's just...not that simple. The timing; impending escape to college, or not, in Pacey's case; the effect on our friendships – they all played a huge part.

- What happened to Dawson? It can't have been to fun, senior year and all.

- It wasn't. We made up, in a tentative and extremely fragile way. Pacey and Dawson though? I don't think they'll ever repair their relationship.

- I think if Dawson was really such a great friend to you guys, he'd want you both to be happy.

- I dunno. Rightly or wrongly, he felt betrayed by us and that's a difficult emotion to ignore.

- I can't believe he rejected you and then tried to assert some sort of ownership over your love life.

- I understand it, in a way. He started dating Pacey's sister and even though I was with Pace, I still felt a bit jealous.

- Seriously, Joey, you guys are messed up.

- You wanna know what's messed up? Pacey felt that the middle of prom would be an appropriate platform to air all our problems and then dump me; then, after graduation, Dawson and I share a monumental kiss, don't see each other all summer and now I'm here with my head spinning wondering what the hell is going on.

- A lifetime of therapy could not fix you people. I'm going to bed to dream of sex with Jared Leto on a Caribbean beach. Good night, Joey!


End file.
